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Linux links of the week


Conglomerate is a project to create a graphical editor for structured text documents. It's still in an early stage, but the screenshots look pretty slick and they seem to have some good ideas.

The OpenBIOS project is working toward the development of a free BIOS system. Thus far, all i386-based Linux users are still dependant on proprietary BIOS code to get their systems going. The OpenBIOS folks are getting close - the kernel "almost" boots.

Section Editor: Jon Corbet


March 9, 2000

   

 

Letters to the editor


Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lwn.net. Preference will be given to letters which are short, to the point, and well written. If you want your email address "anti-spammed" in some way please be sure to let us know. We do not have a policy against anonymous letters, but we will be reluctant to include them.
 
   
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 04:16:40 -0500
From: Ron <rongage@att.net>
To: letters@lwn.net, malda@slashdot.net
Subject: The slashdot effect again damages our name.

Editor:

On Tuesday, Feb 29 2000, Slashdot published a small news item entitled
"USB Forum Becomes Too Greedy".  The gist of this article was about the
decision of the USB standard committee (or whatever they are called) to
charge for the information regarding the upcoming, not yet released USB
v2.0 spec.  The charge is listed as $2500 - in other words, become a
member of the standards committee.

The crowd at Slashdot decided collectively to "DeCSS" this thing.  A
couple of people "broke" into the protected section of the USB.ORG
website and mirrored out the entire documents section.

Granted, the security in the protected section was allegedly weak
(username == password, username == manufacturer_id), but that does not
make for an excuse.  Breaking in is still Breaking in.

What we have done in the eyes of the "members" of the USB committee is
turned into a band of thieves simply because a few people did not agree
with their decision.  As near as I could tell, there wasn't even a
single attempt to contact the USB committee regarding this matter.

This is an example of the mob mentality that can sometimes overtake us
in the support of our favorite Operating System.  We have seriously hurt
what we may have had for a good name with these people - I will be VERY
surprised to see "legal" USB 2.0 support anytime in the near future. all
thanks to a few over-zealous individuals.

I fear that we have just handed ourselves our own defeat on this one.
We all need to step back and make sure we don't screw ourselves like
this on ANYTHING else in the future.  We *had* ally's on the USB
committee (Intel, Compaq, etc...), now, who knows where we stand, if at
all.

To the folks who were part of the break-ins, just a few words.  Please,
while your enthusiasm for Linux is applaudable, THINK before you do
something like this again.  In the real world (where we all must
eventually live), actions like this do NOT work and can lead to SERIOUS
repercussions for EVERYONE.  Just because you got your hands on the USB
2.0 draft documents, do you think they are going to be useful?  Do you
think we will be able to LEGALLY use these ill-gotten drafts?  You folks
were absolutely correct, you will be DeCSSing this thing - you are going
to get everyone and their brother sued for, among other things, theft,
copyright infringment, and who knows what else.  Thanks guys, just what
we all needed, another reason to funnel money into lawyer's hands.

Ron Gage - Saginaw, Michigan
(rongage@att.net)


   
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 19:42:39 +0000
From: jb <jb@yperite.demon.co.uk>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: tech IPOs

Hello,

Regarding your recent excerpt from news.com about high tech IPOs any
potential investor would do well to remember just how far recent IPOs
have "tanked" (as the Thomson analyst Richard Peterson put it). 

A survey of "E-Commerce" in the latest edition of The Economist
(February 26th) quantifies it a bit further: "It is notable that nearly
three-quarters of e-commerce-related IPOs since mid-1995 are now trading
below their issue price."

Invest in good businesses, not the fad of the moment.
   
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: open source vs free software
From: Laurent Martelli <martelli@iie.cnam.fr>
Date: 02 Mar 2000 11:14:46 +0100


> Clearly RST chose to release the source code for ITS4 in order to
> show their confidence in their own code, to facilitate bug fixes
> and maybe even to accept improvements from others, but not in
> order to help produce a world where all software is free. This is
> their right. However, they should be strongly encouraged to call
> their software "source-code-provided", not "open source", or the
> value of that term will be diluted.

I think that the term "open source" is already diluted. Or at least,
it does not mean to most people what you think it should mean. "open
source" only refers to the availability of the sources. So RST is
right to used that term in that context. The use of "free software"
would be a lie, but "open source" is pretty accurate I think.

Regards,
Laurent

-- 
Laurent Martelli
martelli@iie.cnam.fr
 

 

 
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